HoloLens Conker Game Looks Awful, Just Awful

Conker, the lead character from the foul-mouthed platformer Conker's Bad Fur Day and one of many furry drivers in Diddy Kong Racing, is back. But he's been completely neutered. Microsoft has taken the character and made him the lead in Young Conker, a platformer for the HoloLens, the company's augmented reality headset.

Besides the fact that it's pretty cool your room can form the basis for a platformer, Young Conker looks like bland drek. That wouldn't be the worst crime, but why would you attach a character like Conker to that game? Conker, the squirrel who kills a giant, opera-singing poo by choking it with loo rolls:

Conker, the squirrel who took on an army of nazi teddy bears:

If Microsoft was looking for an inoffensive, cuddly animal that's starred in platformers before, surely it still has the license to Blinx the Cat on ice somewhere.

I am really excited for Microsoft HoloLens. When they showed it off at E3 last year I was hugely excited about the possibilities, and Keza tried it later in the year and was taken with the technology in Minecraft. But the games need to be better than a charmless, goggle-eyed version of gaming's greatest squirrel (sorry Tails*) running around on the floor of your living room.

These are still early days for the headset and this is one of the first games that will be shipped with the gear for people who buy the dev kit, but it's not a good start. Face Raiders was better.